Charlie Hunnam: I've always been well received by women

Bookworm, film fan, telly addict. Special skill: I can recite the whole of Spaceballs.

Thursday 18 May 2017

One of the last things the handsome, strapping Charlie Hunnam says in our interview is that he’s always “been well-received by the female audience”. No kidding.

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But I should put it in context: we’re discussing the fact that he seems to have played a lot of hyper-masculine roles – most famously Jackson Teller on the ludicrously addictive, but sickeningly violent, Sons Of Anarchy. The show is about a Californian biker gang that drinks, seduces women and offs their rivals with horrifying regularity, if not a great deal of efficiency (they are seriously terrible at crime, despite it being their main income stream). “Our key demographic on Sons Of Anarchy was predominantly female,” he says when we meet in Claridge’s in London to discuss his latest role, in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword. “And King Arthur is appealing in the test screenings much more to women than men – so I feel that even though I play hyper-masculine roles, I’ve always been well-received by the female audience.”

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It *might* have something to do with the tons of sexy topless scenes every season, or just that Charlie manages to be the most charismatic multi-tattooed murderer on screen. Today Charlie seems more obliging son-in-law, less cocksure Son Of Anarchy. He’s earnest and measured in his responses; moderately beardy in a white shirt, black trousers and New Balance trainers. When he crosses his legs, his trouser hems ride up to reveal a pair of ‘jazzy’ multi-coloured socks. As he talks, he fiddles with a pen and chews gum.

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“I learnt to fight because I’d been in some violent situations that hadn’t gone well for me”

In this version of the Arthurian legend, Arthur is robbed of his birthright as heir to the Camelot throne when his father is killed and his sorcerer uncle, Vortigern (played with obvious glee by Jude Law), seizes power. The young Arthur is spirited away to live an anonymous life as a commoner at a brothel, learning to fight and hustle – a sort of bouncer-slash-wheeler-dealer who protects the women who have looked after him. But then he pulls the legendary sword from the stone and has to face up to his destined role of king, and battle the evil uncle who refuses to cede his power.

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It’s a typical Guy Ritchie movie, with all the fast cuts, tongue-in-cheek banter and quick explanatory cutaways that come with the director’s best-known projects – Lock, Stock…, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes. (There’s also a cameo by David Beckham but, in all honesty, the less said about that the better.) Arthur and his gang are definitely less regal than in some incarnations, with more swearing and showing off. “There’s definitely some swagger,” says Charlie. “We didn’t shy away from making him unlikeable in the beginning of the film, but hopefully you start to see him go through his process of self-exploration and realise where a lot of his swagger comes from. It’s just covering up his own perception of his inadequacies and demons, so you start to feel for him.”

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Charlie had a few demons of his own to overcome when filming started in the UK just two months after he finished the seventh – and final – season of Sons Of Anarchy in LA. Namely: exorcising Jax from his psyche. “It was actually quite emotional for me, living and loving that guy for eight years, to have to finally put him to bed,” he says with a rueful smile. “I found myself going back to set a lot. I knew the security guards and for a couple of days said, ‘Oh, I forgot something’, so they’d let me onto the set, and I’d just walk around at night because I wanted to be in that environment and go through a personal process of saying goodbye. After a couple of nights I didn’t really need the alibi to get in, and then after a while I just said, ‘OK, enough, this is done.’”

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Mark Eccleston

Charlie Hunnam

18 May 2017

Mark Eccleston

So Charlie has moved on, but occasionally someone still conflates the 37-year-old Newcastle-born actor with the hard-ass, gym-honed president of the biker gang that he played for all those years. “Yep,” he nods grimly, when I ask him if anyone has ever tried to pick a fight with him. “You’ve just got to rise above that and walk away. In my late teens and early twenties, I learnt to fight because I’d been in some violent situations that hadn’t gone well for me. I once had a fight with five lads and got absolutely smashed to pieces, so I developed a resolve never to be in that situation again. But with that [learning to fight], comes a healthy relationship with your physical standing in the general marketplace, so I don’t feel like I’ve got a lot to prove. It’s usually alcohol-fuelled and you can just tell these guys are not dudes who are taking this seriously. It’s a guy who goes out on a Saturday night, has a few beers and wants to throw a punch.”

"I find the process of having to constantly make career decisions really daunting and anxiety-inducing."

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Keeping in peak physical shape isn’t just about staying Zen in the face of a boozed-up pub chancer, though. Having set up home in LA, he admits that he’s “gone a bit Californian” when it comes to health and fitness, and cites exercise as a big stress reliever in his life. “Enormous emphasis is put on nutrition and healthy lifestyle there,” he says. “I never spent much time or energy thinking about nutrition and health when I was in the north of England,” he says. (Although don’t worry, Geordie readers, he hasn’t forgotten what pease pudding is. The mere mention of it raises a smile.)

Three-and-a-half years ago, Charlie famously pulled out of playing Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades franchise due to a filming clash with Crimson Peak. At the time, he described having to bow out as “heartbreaking”. Two films in, has he had a Sliding Doors moment about what might have been? “Honestly, I never really think about it,” he says. “I find the process of having to constantly make career decisions really daunting and anxiety-inducing, so I try to be very studied and specific in the process of doing it. Then once they’re made, I try not to waste any time looking back.” He doesn’t need to. Charlie’s doing just fine.